


Once In A While

by yo__gabygaby



Series: Once In A While [1]
Category: Filthy Frank - Fandom, George miller - Fandom, Joji - Fandom
Genre: 88 Rising, F/M, Rei Brown - Freeform, george miller - Freeform, joji - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:54:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25240483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yo__gabygaby/pseuds/yo__gabygaby
Summary: My best friends-the smiling dark-haired boy on my left and the lanky one on my right-and I lay in the rice fields the way we always did on cool summer nights. Tomorrow, George would fly out to New York and Ray would leave shortly after. I would be left here to say my good byes and let them go.
Relationships: George "Joji" Miller/Original Character(s)
Series: Once In A While [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1828519
Comments: 3
Kudos: 4





	1. Bubble

“What do you see?” I asked no one in particular. My voice came out a whisper, seemingly afraid to disturb the vast field that surrounded us and in which we lay. Above us twinkling stars speckled the sky and a crescent moon barely illuminated the darkness.

“Endless possibilities,” George’s deep and ever confident voice broke the silence. He turned his head to face me with a small smile on his lips. I kept my gaze fixed on the sky, unwilling to look away from the comforting darkness.

My best friends—the smiling dark-haired boy on my left and the lanky one on my right—and I lay in the rice fields the way we always did on cool summer nights. The only difference was that, instead of filling the night with stories, crazy ideas, and even crazier dreams, tonight we lay in silence.

“Do you think we’ll ever do this again?” Ray this time, ever calm. From the corner of my eye, I could see his hands resting on his stomach, rising and falling steadily with every breath he took. 

I wondered if Ray’s question, soft and contemplative like mine, reached George’s ears. I closed my eyes to picture us three the same way we were today—young, idealistic, and happy. I wondered if the older versions of ourselves would look the same or if we would one day find ourselves back in this field together. 

Before I knew it, I felt warm tears roll off the side of my cool cheeks as my eyes began to sting. 

I turned to my side to face George, whose head was still turned to face me. His eyes, which were gleaming and happy earlier, were now full of concern. My arms laced around his arm and I pressed my face to his shoulder. I let the tears silently spill as he gently reached over with his free hand to stroke my hair. 

The heaviness in my chest was my heart in pieces as the first of us prepared for good byes. I wondered if my tears would ever stop spilling and if my heart would ever feel light again. If the boy who stroked my hair would one day find his way back to me, to comfort me in the same way he had countless times before, like he was doing now.  
“We should go back now,” George whispered. He waited until my crying subsided to say it. How long had it been? The hand he used to stroke my hair, that never wavered as he comforted me, now squeezed my shoulder as he slowly peeled me off his arm. His shoulder now stained with my tears.

“I’m sorry,” I said, between sniffles. George shook his head as if to say it was nothing, then stood up, dusting himself off as he did. Ray and I mirrored him. Wordlessly, George opened his arms for a group hug. Ray and I walked in and George squeezed tight, almost as if he would never let go.

\--

“Kaia,” George whispered. The three of us were now in his room—George on his bed and Ray and I on the floor, sharing a futon the way we always had at sleepovers at George’s house. “Kaia, I know you’re awake.” George called again. The sheets on his bed ruffled loudly as his body weight moved from one side of the bed to the other. I opened my eyes to see him watching me, his upper body propped up, leaning on his left arm, while his right hand rested on his hip. 

Even in the darkness, unable to see the details of the dark figure before me, I knew he was grinning. Purposely, he mimicked Rose from Titanic in that infamous painting scene. I smiled. 

“What is it?” I whispered back, afraid to wake Ray sleeping soundly on the other side of the futon. 

“Are you going to tell him?” His voice was so soft, but in the stillness of the night, it was still too loud. I wondered momentarily if George could see my face—my wide eyes, furrowed brows, and my jaw, which hung open. “I was hoping you’d tell him before I left, you know. Just so that I’d be around to still enjoy the moment with you guys.”  
The sudden reminder of George’s inevitable departure erased any sense of anger or annoyance I felt. 

“That’s the furthest thing from my mind. Besides, I already know the answer,” I said softly, as a lump formed in my throat. “We both know he doesn’t see me like that.”  
I couldn’t see George’s expression, but I turned away to lay on my back. Momentarily, we were enveloped in the silence once again, but I could still feel his eyes on me.  
“He’d be an idiot not to,” he said, before shifting once again to lay on his back. 

George’s words hung in the air. I’d miss how he was always ready to reassure me or tell me how special I was. Scenes from our childhood played behind my closed eyes until sleep finally crept in, blurring it all and muting the voices that swam in my thoughts.


	2. All I Want

The harsh morning sun crept in through the window, reflecting orange light off the white walls and wooden furniture. My eyes rested on the ceiling to watch the shadows slowly shifting as I waited for the others to wake up.

I turned my head to face the boy on my left who I shared the futon with. He slept on his stomach, leaning his head on his right arm so he was facing me. I couldn’t help but stare at him, caught up in the details that made his face stand out among all the others I saw daily. Chiseled yet soft features, wide eyes framed by long and dark lashes, and wide lips that rested in a straight line. My eyes fell on each feature, committing them to memory, afraid I’d one day forget the little nuances that I’d grown to know over the years. 

Ray’s eyes shifted behind closed eyelids and before I could register what was happening, they opened. 

He met mine before he squinted and blinked the sleep away. “Good morning,” he said, smiling. 

For a second, I held his gaze and the pace of my heart quickened. “Good morning,” I said back softly. 

He rolled over on his back and stretched his arms overhead, exposing his toes from underneath the blanket. Embarrassed, I turned to my right to face George’s bed.  
George was still asleep. He lay with his right arm dangling off the side of the bed while his head rested on his left arm. I allowed a few seconds to stare at him, too. To take in the features that made his face distinctly his—the dark mop of hair that grew out over the summer, that now stuck out all over the place; the thick lips and swollen eye bags that made him look perpetually tired; the large eyes that always had a knowing look on them, but were now shrouded by closed lids; and the thick black eye brows that sat above them.  
“Stop staring, you’ll make me blush,” George groaned, eyes still closed. 

“She’s just trying to remember us,” Ray called from behind me. 

“Yeah, but if she doesn’t stop staring at me, I’ll think she actually likes me,” George replied. 

Embarrassed about being caught a second time, I threw the blanket over my face as my cheeks began to heat up. Suddenly, a loud grunt sounded overhead, followed by a heavy body landing on top of me, weighing down right at my stomach. Two arms wrapped around me, tucking the comforter into my sides in a tight hug. 

“She’s very sentimental, this one,” It was George’s muffled voice.

“Get off me!” I managed to say, as I pulled the blanket off from over my head. George, laughing, rolled off me and landed at the foot of the futon over my legs. I turned to my left and saw Ray chuckling at the scene before him. 

\--

The three of us stood leaning over the bridge that overlooked one of the vast fields in town. The ice cream melted rapidly in the summer heat as each of us fought to catch any melted cream before it dripped onto our hands. 

It was a few hours to go before George was to board his flight, and from today, a week before Ray would board his own flight. George eyed me as he ate his ice cream, gesturing animatedly with his eyes and eyebrows to talk to Ray. I shook my head violently, ‘no’ and that caught Ray’s attention. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked me. I turned to face him, thinking of an excuse, before George jumped in. 

“Hey, look at the time, I think I need to get packing—” He started in an exaggerated tone. Ray furrowed his eyebrows in response before checking his watch.  
“You have a few hours to go, and didn’t you pack everything already?”

George and I exchanged glances, before George shoved the last of his ice cream cone in his mouth, turned around, grabbed his bike, and peddled away.  
“What’s up with him?” Ray asked, shaking his head. 

“Explosive diarrhea?” I replied with a shrug. 

“I didn’t know he was lactose intolerant,” Ray said laughing.

With the absence of George, silence soon filled the space between us. I wondered if Ray noticed just how quiet it had gotten, or if he realized it was quiet because I didn’t know how to talk to him. Ray was never one to talk much, so I wracked my brain trying to think of a topic to start with, just so that it wouldn’t be awkward.  
“Your ice cream,” Ray’s voice cut through my thoughts and brought me back to the bridge, where ice cream dripped down my thumb. I gasped and licked my thumb, then tilted my head around the cone to catch the ice cream that ran down the sides. “Kaia,” he started. I hadn’t heard him call my name in a while and it surprised me, but I soon realized it warranted a response. 

“Yep?” I said, casually, as if the extra few seconds it took to respond was because I was busy dealing with my ice cream. 

“I heard you and George talking last night…” His voice trailed off, maybe waiting for my response. I looked up at him, but he kept his eyes on the field. 

“Oh yeah?” I hoped I sounded casual. Did we actually say his name? What if I pretended it was someone else? No, Ray knew. Of course he knew. 

Ray turned to face me with a smile on his lips. “I care about you Kaia, you’re one of my closest friends, but more than anything, you’re like a sister to me,” he said calmly.  
I dropped his gaze and looked out at the rice fields. 

“I… I guess that’s why George ran away like that, right?” he asked, “because he wanted us to talk?”

I nodded. 

“I didn’t want to have this talk with you, Ray,” I was finally able to say. “I told George last night that I already knew how you felt, but I guess he really wanted me to tell you anyway.” My voice cracked at the last word as a lump formed in my throat. 

“Are—are you okay?” he asked.

I nodded enthusiastically. “I’m not heartbroken or anything,” I started. “I mean, it’s a bummer, yeah, but it’s not like I didn’t prepare myself for this anyway. It’s more painful dealing with the fact that both you AND George are leaving me. I still don’t know what to do with myself about it,” I confessed. It was true. I knew about Ray’s feelings from the beginning, and long settled on keeping my little crush a secret.

Ray nodded, taking in my words. “We’ll be back during breaks, and there’s always Skype and all of George’s YouTube videos. It will be like we never left.” He offered another warm smile. “Besides, think of it as a little vacation from all the shenanigans and whatnot.”

I forced a laugh in response. I loved the shenanigans and being part of the planning and getting to hold the camera or run after George when he did something crazy. I liked sitting in the corner of Ray’s room listening to the two of them make songs out of nothing. I’d miss being a part of their lives. 

I sighed, then leaned my head on his arm. I did it cautiously, maybe a little worried he’d shrug me off now that he knew I liked him. But instead of pushing me away, Ray raised his arm and wrapped it around me protectively. “Promise me it won’t be weird between us?” I asked. I felt him nod in response. 

We broke off when we heard the familiar bell of George’s bike, before we simultaneously turned towards the direction of the sound. George walked towards us from behind the bus stop, where he probably hid to give us privacy. 

“I guess he didn’t go very far to find a bathroom,” Ray joked. 

“Congratulations are in order?” George said enthusiastically as he approached, before he flashed a grin. I tried to mouth ‘no,’ when Ray’s arm wrapped around my shoulder once again and pulled me in. George’s gaze fell to Ray’s arm around me before he met my eyes, as if trying to read my expression, which must’ve looked surprised. 

“Ahh, well I kind of knew,” Ray said shyly, yet animatedly. I wondered where the extra shot of energy came from. 

“So you guys are like a thing now?” George pointed at us with both of his index fingers, crossing and pointing as if to signal a connection. Ray didn’t answer and neither did I, but my silence was more because I wondered where Ray was going with this. Was he trying to show George that we were okay, despite everything? “Like, you love her back?” George pressed, shooting us both questioning glances.

“I never said I loved him!” I defended, a little too rough. 

“But it’s like a ‘like like,’ right?” Ray replied with a wink. I shifted my gaze from George’s confused expression to Ray’s playful one. 

“I mean, yeah… I sort of confessed, didn’t I?” 

“What and I’m chopped liver?” George shot back, throwing his arms up in the air. He was visibly annoyed now and maybe a little jealous. Ray and I were rarely this touchy-feely unless George was somewhere in middle playing along. Ray dropped his arm from my shoulder and grabbed his bike, then walked over to George to put an arm around his shoulder. George tensed for a moment, then relaxed his shoulders. 

“Is someone a little jealous? I have love enough for the both of you!” I heard Ray tease. 

I watched them turn around then walk away until I realized they were heading home. “Wait up!” I called, before I turned to grab my bike and follow them.


	3. Wanted U

I kept a steady pace behind the boys as we biked home that afternoon. Mostly because I wanted to give them time to goof around and say their goodbyes without me in the middle. Also because I wanted to watch them play and race home together the way we would back when we were younger, when I still couldn’t keep pace with them. Even when I lost sight of them, I knew that, as always, they’d be waiting for me at the fork in the road where Ray turned left and George and I turned right.

I caught sight of them hugging in the distance. They broke apart by the time I approached, and even if I noticed the tears formed in George’s eyes, I said nothing. 

Ray pressed his lips together in a tight smile, then held his hand up ‘good bye,’ before he got on his bike and peddled home. As abrupt as it felt, I knew it was just how they tried to suck it up and say good bye in the most grown-up way they could. 

George turned away and wiped his face with his shirt, before he turned to me all red and puffy. 

“So, um,” was all he said before we both started laughing. 

“You’re just as sentimental as I am,” I teased, nudging his arm with my elbow. George grinned, before he let out one loud sniffle. 

“Hey, do you want to head over to the park?” he asked, “I still have an hour before I need to be home anyway.” I obliged, knowing he needed the company and selfishly because I wanted to spend as much time as I could with him before he left. 

We walked to the park in silence, the way we always had. It wasn’t my favorite park, but it was where George always went when he needed to think, mostly after school or summer afternoons like today. I liked to think of it as our park, because George only ever invited me to go with him.

We lay our bikes beside us and sat down on the patch of grass under one of the trees. At this point, George would have said something, but he didn’t. He sat in silence with his legs pulled to his chest looking out into the street. 

“What’s on your mind?” I finally asked, turning to him. 

“Ray told me that he heard us talking last night,” he started. “I didn’t know he was such a light sleeper.” 

“You and your big fucking mouth ruined it for me,” I joked.

“How are you though?” he asked, nudging my arm with his shoulder. “For a minute there, I thought it really did go well for the both of you.”

“I’m fine,” I said with a smile. He offered me an apologetic puppy dog pout. “No seriously, I’m surprisingly okay,” I had to explain. “I’ve always known nothing would come out of this crush, and I guess that’s just what it was. I think what scared me was that I always thought he might look at me differently if I told him I liked him and that added to the feelings and blew it out of proportion.”

“I know what you mean,” George mumbled. 

“How would you though?” I asked, a little confused. 

George turned to me, mirroring the same confused look. 

“Kaia, c’mon.” He said, shaking his head. 

“What?” I asked again, annoyed at his response. 

“Are you telling me that you have no idea?” He asked. I furrowed my brows and looked him in the eye. 

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” I responded. 

“You’re my best friend, but you’re a dense mother fucker sometimes, you know that?” It was George’s turn to be annoyed. He was on his feet now, pacing. “How could you not know?”

I watched him pace, caught a glimpse of how distressed he looked, then stood up. I caught him on his next turn and wrapped my arms around him. He instantly melted into my arms.

“What are you trying to tell me, Joji?” I asked in a calm voice. I called him Joji as a pet name sometimes, reminding us both of our childhood when our neighbors called his very Western name in their Japanese accent.

He wrapped his arms around me and rested his head on my shoulder before he sighed. “I like you, Kaia.”

His words didn’t sink in right away. I needed a minute to go over them a few times in my mind.

“What do you mean?” I finally asked, after pulling away. I looked up at George and he had this resigned, almost tired look on his face. 

“It was selfish of me, but I wanted you to tell Ray about your feelings for him because I wanted to know how to deal with my own after. But it almost fucking broke me when I thought it went well. I’m really sorry.”

“Joji, I don’t understand—” I began to say, but I didn’t know what else to say after that. 

He shook his head. “I’ve loved you for as long as I’ve known that loving someone else was a feeling you could have,” He explained.

“But you never said anything?” I asked, finally coming to realize what he meant. 

“I was afraid I’d lose you if I told you,” His voice was straining now, trying to sound nonchalant, but I could hear the veiled sadness. 

I looked up at him, examining my own feelings, trying to see Joji apart from being this boy I’d grown up with, my best friend, my confidant. The boy who’d seen me through the rough patches of my life, the awkwardness and indecisiveness of my adolescence. I’ve always known that I loved Joji, of course I had. 

“I don’t know how to explain it, but the feelings I have for you and Ray are different,” I said cautiously. 

“I get it, I get it,” he began to say, but I shook my head. 

“No, listen,” I said sternly. He met my eyes and nodded, giving me his full attention. “I thought I’d be heartbroken when Ray finally told me he didn’t like me the way I liked him, but it didn’t feel like that. It felt like I’d let go of something I’d been holding onto for so long. And instead of sadness, I felt relief, and soon, nothing.”

George nodded again, maybe trying to understand my words and where I was going with them. 

“But the way I feel about you leaving me… I don’t know how I’m going to get over that,” I finally put to words the thoughts that had been in my mind all this time. “I’ve always loved you, Joji. That, I know. It’s just that I don’t know what kind of love it is. I’ve never thought of classifying it, because I’ve never seen the need to. All I know for sure is that I learned what being heartbroken felt like when you told me you were leaving and I realized I would lose you.” I heard my voice crack at the last part and I felt a lump form in my throat. I dropped my gaze to my feet, not wanting him to see me cry again. 

George’s arms wrapped around me and once again, I felt the familiar comfort that came with it. “The hardest part about this was having to leave you here,” he said softly.  
“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to say it, but I don’t want you to go, Joji. Please don’t go.” I was balling now, crying like a baby in his arms. As if my tears would stop him from boarding his flight. 

“I’m never leaving you. Not really, not for good. Okay? I promise. I’ll be right here, maybe just a few hundred thousand miles away—more or less—but I’ll be here, okay?” This was George trying to comfort me. How did we switch roles so suddenly?

“If this is what it is, can we just leave it for ‘one day’ and not today?” I finally managed to say. “One day you’ll be back and we’ll be okay and we’ll understand what it all means.”

George nodded, then pulled me back into what felt like an endless embrace, stopping time long enough for me to savor the sanctuary he provided. Long enough to express all the love I felt for him in the embrace, hoping he’d felt it and that it would be with him for as long as it took for him to come back to me.


	4. Epilogue: Photograph

I stood patiently at the front door of George’s house, waiting for his mom to let me in. I had called earlier in the day to ask if she was available, because I wanted to come over and pickup George’s ukulele. She eagerly obliged, happy to learn that George and I still kept in touch, despite the distance and how busy we’d gotten since school started. 

“He was happy that I finally decided to pick-up an instrument,” I told her, as she lead me to George’s room and closed the door behind me. 

The room looked slightly emptier than it had been since the last time I was there that night of the sleepover with Ray. An untrained eye wouldn’t have noticed, but I knew just by looking around that three missing items proved George wasn’t home: the beaten up MacBook, the midi controller, and the microphone were nowhere to be seen. 

It was odd being in his room without him there or anywhere nearby. I couldn’t help but feel the familiar pang of sadness that came with that thought, but I guess six months still wasn’t enough to get over his departure. 

I looked around a little bit more and noticed three books were missing from his collection on the bookshelf, and some of the gachapon knickknacks weren’t there either. Of all his things, I didn’t think he’d take those with him halfway across the world. 

I found the ukulele tucked between his bed and his bedside table, exactly where he’d said it would be. I unzipped the case to check if the ukulele was still in working condition before I zipped it back up and swung it over my shoulder. I was ready to leave when I spotted the peg board of photos he had hanging on the wall by the door. 

The smiling faces of our friends and classmates, Ray and George, and his family all looked up at me as I prepared to leave his room. For a second, I was almost convinced he didn’t take any photos with him. But upon closer inspection, I realized all but one photo was missing: The Polaroid of George and I taken in my garden before we left for prom.

The photo was just of the two of us posing with goofy expressions, his arm languidly draped around my shoulder while his other hand held out some gangster sign. His lips were pressed in a duck face while I was blowing a kiss at the camera. We looked cute, despite the poses. My red corsage matched his boutenair, because he had asked me what color dress I was wearing and I said it was a glam version of Helena’s gown from the My Chemical Romance music video. He teased me about it, saying something about being so emo, but then he wore a matching bowtie and told me I looked pretty when he saw me that afternoon. It was one of my favorite photos of us, but I had given it to him the day I found out he was moving to New York for college. It was a parting gift I had given him several months before he left and I had scribbled “xo K” on it when I gave it to him. I made him promise to take it with him to New York or wherever he went.

I walked out of the room choked up because of the memory and the realization that he had actually kept the promise I had completely forgotten about. 

\--

Back at my house, I sat on my bed, unable to stop myself from thinking about the photo. My thoughts were interrupted by a ping notification from my phone. A new video alert from YouTube told me George had just uploaded something, so I powered up my laptop to view it. 

Another one of George’s Filthy Frank videos. It was one from the series where he read hate comments on his videos. I had a good laugh, but something about him getting hate comments didn’t sit well with me. I would’ve wanted to give him a hug.

His video had some B-Roll scenes of him reacting to the comments, but one scene stuck out: George was on his bed, arms tucked under his head, pretending to cry. Behind him, the missing Polaroid was taped to the wall, partially hidden by a pillow. If you’d never seen the photo, you would never have guessed what it was a photo of, because the focus on George in bed blurred most of it out. But I knew just by the colors and the shapes that it was the missing Polaroid. 

When the video ended, I shut off my laptop and put it back on the desk. I pulled out my phone to type out a short message to George about seeing his mom and getting the ukulele then pressed ‘send.’ After a bit more thought, I typed out a second message then sent it. 

“Thanks for taking me to New York with you :) xo K”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've gotten this far, thank you so much for reading! Please let me know how you liked it. Also, I'm toying with the idea of writing a second part/book to this series, set after college or somewhere along that timeline. Would you read it or should I just leave this alone?

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys, 
> 
> I'm posting this from Wattpad (https://www.wattpad.com/story/232531921-once-in-a-while). Let me know what you think? I'm toying with the idea of writing a follow-up to this four-part fic. Let me know what you think?


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